IIT - Inventing the Future

There are so many great aspects about IIT that are hard to This week I asked our Student Ambassadors about their favorite memories on campus. I will be posting these responses throughout the next week for all of you to read too. Here are the first two from Alicia and Shezami... enjoy!

Alicia, Homecoming Week

I have made many memories during my time here at Illinois Institute of Technology, that it’s hard to choose just one! One memory that stands out the most for me is when I first arrived as a freshman on campus. It was Homecoming Week, and I was just starting to meet new people. I was having a hard time with the transition from high school to college, so I joined quite a few different student organizations in hope of making new friends and to have fun on campus. There were quite a few different groups that welcomed me, including UB (Union Board), LIFE (Latinos Involved in Furthering Education), and SHPE (Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers).

During homecoming week, UB was in need to volunteers, and since I never had the opportunity to participate in such a huge event like homecoming at my previous school, I was very excited! When it was the day of the Homecoming Carnival, I actually helped create two golf cart floats for the Homecoming Parade and was asked to lead the parade! Everyone was very polite and friendly, and I created many new friendships with my fellow classmates. I am extremely happy to have made the decision to come to IIT, for I feel very accepted here and I don’t think I could find any other place that I would want to be.

Shezami, IPRO Day Spring 2008

I was involved in an IPRO called “Designing an Artificial Pancreas”  which was concerned with developing a non-evasive method for measuring blood glucose level and injecting the appropriate amount of insulin at specific time intervals. Initially I had chosen this IPRO based merely on the fact that it sounded so interesting and innovative but once the project went underway I became very passionate about it.

About 3 million people in America suffer from Diabetes and the fact that we could maybe develop an equipment to relieve them from the pain, they have to suffer to get a drop of blood and inject insulin, really inspired me. This IPRO exploited my full potential and allowed me apply my knowledge in real life problems. It was an IPRO of only 10 students and we learned a lot from and about each other. This was a continuing IPRO and we had completely redesigned the existing technology.  After an entire semester of hard work and diligence, when IPRO day approached we were all suddenly nervous and low in self-confidence. But our instructor gave us the motivation and encouragement we needed. We gave our presentation to the judges in the morning and stood by our display explaining our projects to judges and visitors the rest of the day.

At the end of IPRO day, we realized that we had done our best and there was nothing else we could have done to make it a better project. We were extremely anxious when they were announcing the results for our track. It was shocking and exciting to hear that our IPRO project won first place – it was then that we had realized that all our efforts had paid well.

This experience, among many others, makes me realize how much IIT has molded me into the passionate person I am today about my goals and ambitions. It makes me realize that education is not just about doing good grades and a high-paying job but it is also about helping people.